Sendagaya all day long
Monday night, I slept. I came home from school, got dinner from Tonkatsu Wako, and I pretty much just conked out by 7pm. Unlike Sunday night, where I couldn't get back to sleep, I slept from 7pm to almost 7am Tuesday. I had a headache at school on Monday and everyone was like OMG FLU! but I told them about my poor sleeping spells and hoped I'd be better this morning.
And sure enough, I was.
But today we had a 連合体育大会 or whatever you call it, basically a big track&field day, this time competing against the other public junior high schools in Arakawa. So there were races, and there was a long jump event, and a shot put event, and a high jump event. So I basically spent the day hanging out at the National Stadium in Sendagaya, yelling some cheers occasionally, and mostly just trying to stay out of trouble and keep our students out of trouble.
I also ended up randomly meeting 4 of the other ALTs from the Arakawa JHSes, which was interesting in its own way.
Our school sucked and I think we only had students place in the top 3 or top 5 like maybe... three times. Seriously. Some of the schools had these seriously awesome organized ouendan too, with a ton of people clapping and yelling, and we could barely get our act together to yell anything good at all (though basically when kids DID notice that one of their classmates was competing, they'd start just yelling for that person wildly).
Anyway, I didn't have to go back to the school afterwards so I walked to Jingu stadium for the Swallows-Tigers game, around 3:30.
BIZARRELY, I ran into the Kamagaya Futures Hat guy (whose name turns out to be Yoneyama) and the older lady (Ohgura) who I'd talked to at Jingu on Saturday. No, seriously. They were leaving Jingu as I was walking towards the stadium. It turned out they'd gone to watch the Tohto League games and were going to the Swallows-Tigers game too, so I ended up hanging out with them. OMG WEIRD. Anyway, Yoneyama bought me a ticket to the game -- he got one free ticket from being a Swallows fan club member and two discounted ones, and for whatever reason wouldn't accept my 1000 yen when I offered it for the discounted one.
As we waited to go into the stadium we saw Takehiko Oshimoto, who I used to like when he was on the Fighters, but he got traded to the Swallows. So I begged to get my photo with him :)
I told him I am a big Fighters fan and used to cheer for him when he was with us and he kind of said "Oh, I see". Also, close up he looks kind of like my favorite Dragons player Masahiko Morino.
We also saw Ryota Igarashi -- I took a photo but couldn't get a photo with him. He was on a bike riding to the stadium. (I'd heard you could stalk players by waiting outside the stadium early enough but this is the first time I'd actually encountered any players.)
Anyway, we went and sat up near the top of section D. It was raining on and off all day, even during the sports event, and then during the game. My friend Christopher showed up around 6:45pm, and another American dude also joined us, and we were sitting with some people I'd met before, though, the embarrassing thing is that I didn't recognize any of them until the game started, so trying to explain "yes, I'm meeting a friend... no I have no idea how many people, and actually, I'm not even sure I recognize anyone else in the group..." before the game was kind of embarrassing.
Oh, the Tigers won 8-2. Amusingly, the Yakult fans sang "Kutabare Hanshin" with Tokyo Ondo instead of the normal Kutabare Yomiuri, which I will get to sing when I go to Jingu on Monday in theory. And for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
februaryfour, who will care, Norichika Aoki hit a home run.
Since I saved money by not buying a ticket to the game, I ended up buying a Swallows towel. I couldn't decide between Keizo Kawashima and Yasushi Iihara -- but since Kawashima is a former Fighters player and all, I figured that was a lot more explainable (and I used to be really fond of Keizo when he was with us).
Anyway, as it turns out, Ohgura lives near Akabane too! So we rode the train home together and babbled about college baseball players. She's been a baseball freak forever, really loves college baseball best (and one of her sons apparently played baseball at Shutoku... she told me he went to Koshien with them... and I just looked it up and I think the last time Shutoku went there was 1993, which means in theory she has a son the same age as me, unless I misunderstood. Yikes) She told me to come sit with her and her friends again next time I go to Jingu for college ball in two weeks or so... I said I would, but we'll see. She and Yoneyama are nice enough, I just don't want to get stuck next to people who are going to be jackasses about me being a white person.
Okay.
So anyway...
Today is September 30th, which would have been my father's 66th birthday. That's kind of weird to think about.
And sure enough, I was.
But today we had a 連合体育大会 or whatever you call it, basically a big track&field day, this time competing against the other public junior high schools in Arakawa. So there were races, and there was a long jump event, and a shot put event, and a high jump event. So I basically spent the day hanging out at the National Stadium in Sendagaya, yelling some cheers occasionally, and mostly just trying to stay out of trouble and keep our students out of trouble.
I also ended up randomly meeting 4 of the other ALTs from the Arakawa JHSes, which was interesting in its own way.
Our school sucked and I think we only had students place in the top 3 or top 5 like maybe... three times. Seriously. Some of the schools had these seriously awesome organized ouendan too, with a ton of people clapping and yelling, and we could barely get our act together to yell anything good at all (though basically when kids DID notice that one of their classmates was competing, they'd start just yelling for that person wildly).
Anyway, I didn't have to go back to the school afterwards so I walked to Jingu stadium for the Swallows-Tigers game, around 3:30.
BIZARRELY, I ran into the Kamagaya Futures Hat guy (whose name turns out to be Yoneyama) and the older lady (Ohgura) who I'd talked to at Jingu on Saturday. No, seriously. They were leaving Jingu as I was walking towards the stadium. It turned out they'd gone to watch the Tohto League games and were going to the Swallows-Tigers game too, so I ended up hanging out with them. OMG WEIRD. Anyway, Yoneyama bought me a ticket to the game -- he got one free ticket from being a Swallows fan club member and two discounted ones, and for whatever reason wouldn't accept my 1000 yen when I offered it for the discounted one.
As we waited to go into the stadium we saw Takehiko Oshimoto, who I used to like when he was on the Fighters, but he got traded to the Swallows. So I begged to get my photo with him :)
I told him I am a big Fighters fan and used to cheer for him when he was with us and he kind of said "Oh, I see". Also, close up he looks kind of like my favorite Dragons player Masahiko Morino.
We also saw Ryota Igarashi -- I took a photo but couldn't get a photo with him. He was on a bike riding to the stadium. (I'd heard you could stalk players by waiting outside the stadium early enough but this is the first time I'd actually encountered any players.)
Anyway, we went and sat up near the top of section D. It was raining on and off all day, even during the sports event, and then during the game. My friend Christopher showed up around 6:45pm, and another American dude also joined us, and we were sitting with some people I'd met before, though, the embarrassing thing is that I didn't recognize any of them until the game started, so trying to explain "yes, I'm meeting a friend... no I have no idea how many people, and actually, I'm not even sure I recognize anyone else in the group..." before the game was kind of embarrassing.
Oh, the Tigers won 8-2. Amusingly, the Yakult fans sang "Kutabare Hanshin" with Tokyo Ondo instead of the normal Kutabare Yomiuri, which I will get to sing when I go to Jingu on Monday in theory. And for
februaryfour, who will care, Norichika Aoki hit a home run.Since I saved money by not buying a ticket to the game, I ended up buying a Swallows towel. I couldn't decide between Keizo Kawashima and Yasushi Iihara -- but since Kawashima is a former Fighters player and all, I figured that was a lot more explainable (and I used to be really fond of Keizo when he was with us).
Anyway, as it turns out, Ohgura lives near Akabane too! So we rode the train home together and babbled about college baseball players. She's been a baseball freak forever, really loves college baseball best (and one of her sons apparently played baseball at Shutoku... she told me he went to Koshien with them... and I just looked it up and I think the last time Shutoku went there was 1993, which means in theory she has a son the same age as me, unless I misunderstood. Yikes) She told me to come sit with her and her friends again next time I go to Jingu for college ball in two weeks or so... I said I would, but we'll see. She and Yoneyama are nice enough, I just don't want to get stuck next to people who are going to be jackasses about me being a white person.
Okay.
So anyway...
Today is September 30th, which would have been my father's 66th birthday. That's kind of weird to think about.
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